


The last resort among this sea of dead

by WinchesterBurger



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Canonical Character Death, Caring, Heartbreak, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 22:29:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12443136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinchesterBurger/pseuds/WinchesterBurger
Summary: Doug is dead and nothing indicates that Lee is about to shake off after his death - if not Clementine, fighting for life would make no sense.





	The last resort among this sea of dead

**Author's Note:**

> It's a translation of my own work, you can see original here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12420591  
> I'm not good at writing angst, but I couldn't bear what happened to Doug - I will always deplore his death - and a friendship between him and Lee, shown quite clearly in the game, was so neatly made that I got too much into a fate of our IT technician - and it went like this, so an emotional catastrophe was ready.  
> Anyway, enjoy.

Leaving inert, growing cold, _dead_ Doug on a side of the road was hard, but they didn’t have another choice.   
  
After a few minutes, when a loud conversation with Lilly and Ben came to an end and the RV drove a number of kilometers away from the place of tragedy, Lee truly realized what had just happened.   
  
Doug was dead, he wasn’t standing next to him, wasn’t staring at him with his kind eyes and he’ll never answer him with a long, nerdy monologue. He won’t laugh when Lee will stumble over an protruding bough, he won’t smile when Clementine will proudly show him her new drawing, he won’t fall asleep with his head resting on Everett’s solid arm on a watch.   
  
Instead of this he laid there, slowly changing to a eternally hungry walker who had got to stand soon and enter dark world in searching for a first victim.   
  
Sorrow clutched the dark-skinned American’s heart who fell down on a dirty couch next to sad and shocked Clementine. The girl looked at him from under her long eyelashes.   
  
“Did he suffer?” She asked quietly, and Lee hardly heard her through the engine noises. He shook his head.   
  
“No," he replied shortly, choking on his memories and a broken sob, coming out from his lungs. “He didn’t feel anything.”   
  
Clementine nodded, seeing that a further talk makes no sense, that the man isn’t able to answer her in a way he always did; she took her hand out of the pocket of her burgundy hoodie and put something cold in Everett’s benumbed palm. Lee glanced at her in question, but she only closed her eyes and ducked her head, and then the man could turn his attention to a thing held between his fingers.   
  
Batteries.   
  
Four short cells tied up with a grey rubber band, black and red, coloured a bit with markers that Lee found in one of the ransacked shops and gave them to Clementine - seemingly, a simple thing, something what you can find in almost every electronic equipment, but the dark-skinned man in a fraction of a second realized what was it about.   
  
The day they escaped the dairy farm (after a long, dangerous and tiring fight, leaving three corpses and distraught Andrew to the state of the ruthless biters behind themselves) and found a parked in the woods car with a trunk full of food and meds, Clem disagreed with Lee on taking all supplies, she said they belong to somebody else. Then Doug approached her and gave her these four little batteries - and though they were _only batteries_ , this gesture visibly cheered the girl up and filled Lee with something warm, so domestic, something what he hasn’t feel for many, many years.   
  
It wasn’t like he and Doug felt something to each other - well, maybe not openly, maybe it wasn’t easy and clear, but their relationship could grow up strong and stable. They both needed this in these times, _Lee_ wanted it almost as much as the group’s safety, Clementine’s safety. They treated each other with respect and gentleness, and ease which they talked with made them think like they knew each other for years, not months.   
  
Doug was likeable and smart, furthermore protective and trustworthy what Lee noticed already the first time they met - for the next weeks Doug had been torturing Everett with his academical monologues about ordinary things, often making him crazy or laugh, what usually ended with a Lee’s silencing hand on blonde’s mouth and promises that the next time he’ll finish on two sentences.   
  
Thinking about his honest smile never appearing on his face again was unbearable. The truth was, Clementine experienced it no less badly than Lee - Lilly, culprit of this horrible death, and saved by Doug Ben also looked depressed - however it was Lee who will feel IT technician’s absence the most. He was the one who will feel emptiness on excursions and coldness of the night on watches, he was the one who will have to get used to lack of technological tittle-tattles and tricks that would save their lives not only once.   
  
He was the one who will have to let his own shattered heart fall down to the end and welcome loneliness with open arms.   
  
“Lee, I’m cold.”   
  
But not now.   
  
Clementine needed him more than ever, and he had to be up to the challenge and don’t let her down, don’t let her tiny body grow cold, don’t give Death a chance to touch her.   
  
He embraced the girl with his arms and drew her closer to himself, letting his vestigial heart cling to her like to the last resort among this sea of dead.  


**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you saw any grammar mistakes - I'm not native English speaker, so any help will be welcomed with open arms.


End file.
